Blog – Page 2

Dec 18 2020

If you love Portland, shop local in our first pandemic holiday season…starting with Christmas trees and pastoral bliss at Furrow Farm

It’s a scenic drive to 25877 NW West Union Rd in the rural outskirts of Hillsboro

“Love Portland, shop local” goes double in our 1st pandemic holiday season! Our creativity and entrepreneurship are recognized nationally and a key part of what makes living in the Metro area so special. But many local businesses are struggling now and need our support.

Episode 4 of my vlog profiles a local business my family and I love: Furrow Farm. Their Christmas trees are fresh, beautiful and reasonably priced. But it’s the total experience — pastoral bliss! — that keeps us coming back year after year.

Click the play button below to watch the video. And for more leads on shopping local, copy these links to your web browser:

shopsmallpdx.com/small-business-directory
pdxmonthly.com/style-and-shopping/black-owned-businesses-service-directory
cityshoppe.com/city/portland

Dec 03 2020

Mission critical – finding your happy place. My Facebook page can help you get more joy out of your home, neighborhood and city

The places where we live, work and play have a deep impact on our mood, behavior and health. So it’s important to choose them with care. Thoughtfully designed environments can bring out the best in us.

Running just over 2 minutes, Episode 3 of my vlog sketches a few thoughts on how to find your happy place. A key takeaway? You’ll find help and support in that quest on my Facebook page. Click the play button below to watch. (BTW, you can cherry pick its contents using the timed outline just below the embedded video.) Then click here to visit and like my Facebook page.

To cherry pick video content, use this timed outline:
Intro 0 – 0:15
Finding your happy place at home 0:15 – 0:42
Finding your happy place in Portland 0:42-1:23
How my FB page can help 1:23-1:54
Your next step – visit & like my page! 1:54-2:03

Nov 27 2020

Are you a fan of Portland walks and walkability? Here – in 6 buckets – are tips and resources to learn and enjoy more

Episode 2 of my vlog counts the many ways Metro area walks and walkability enhance our lives. In case you didn’t catch it on Youtube or Instagram, you’ll find the video at the bottom of this blog post. The written tips and resources below are a companion piece. I hope they deepen your understanding and appreciation of where you live.

Bucket 1: Get walk scores

Find the walk score of your home or a listed property if you’re looking to buy. Just enter the address in the search window on this home page

Bucket 2: Learn how walkability affects home values

You’ll find Portland-specific data in the graphics of this Redfin article

Bucket 3: Join a Meetup walking or hiking group and let someone else plan your next outing (outdoor groups remain active in the pandemic)

Positively Portland architectural history walking tours are a favorite of mine. Eric Wheeler helps you get to know Portland neighborhoods and home styles.
NW Wilderness
Trails Club of OR
Portland Hiking Group
55+ Fitness and Fun with Physical Activities

Bucket 4: Buy or borrow guidebooks to memorable walks in Portland and Oregon, some tailored to active seniors and kids

The links below the images will take you to amazon.com, but you may be able to find the e’books on the virtual shelves of your neighborhood public library.


Click here	Click here	Click here	Click here

Bucket 5: Brush up on walkability, the 15-minute city, and Portland’s complete neighborhoods

Global in perspective, this Bloomberg article lauds Portland as model city in car-centric America
This Bureau of Planning & Sustainability piece defines ‘complete neighborhoods’ and presents the city’s 2035 access goal
Our ParkScore courtesy of The Trust for Public Land
Our score and national ranking courtesy of WalkScore

Bucket 6: Last but not least and because a picture’s worth 1,000 words, here’s a slide show of the nature walk just steps from my door – meant to inspire you to get more joy out of your neighborhood or to visit mine

Have seen a Snowy Egret & a Great Blue Heron in this spot!

Homing in on Portland, Episode 2

Nov 19 2020

Are you planning to buy or sell a home in Cedar Mill or Cedar Hills? First take the temperature of these neighborhood markets with my quarterly newsletters tracking hot and cold prices, activity and speed!

As Oregon enters a new Coronavirus “freeze,” I’m more determined than ever to provide valuable content across all channels, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and this website. Public health concerns limit opportunities for face-to-face communication. But video can help to offset social distancing, offering a more personal and compelling alternative to the written word.

So going forward, my blog will do double duty as a vlog. Click the play button below to view Episode 1 of Homing in on Portland. (It’s short and sweet at just under 1.5 minutes.) Then subscribe to either or both of my quarterly newsletters by sending your name and email address to catherinequoyeser@kw.com

Sep 14 2018

Homing in on Portland’s neighborhood housing markets – They’re not easy to track but here’s your guide to Cedar Hills and a leg up on the rest of the west side

Portland Business Journal tracks the Metro area’s hottest zip codes quarterly

The Portland Business Journal has good news for lots of homeowners on Portland’s west side. The zip code 97229 (Forest Heights, Bethany, Cedar Mill) continues to be one of the Metro area’s hottest neighborhoods and 97225 (Cedar Hills & Raleigh Hills) broke into the ranks of the top 10 in the 1st quarter of this year.

I feel fortunate to have had a front row seat on the trends. I recently listed homes in the areas (two in Cedar Hills and one in Cedar Mill) and repped buyer clients in the sale of a 4^th in Cedar Mill. On average, the three listings sold in 2.3 days at 99.5 percent of asking price.

One of my Cedar Hills listings – a detached home at 11445 SW Lynnvale Dr

I aim to be a realtor of choice for area residents. So last month I created a quarterly newsletter on real estate activity in Cedar Hills. Market data is readily available for cities, towns and zip codes. But that’s not the case for neighborhoods, though they’re probably a more meaningful affiliation for most people.

So my work was cut out for me. I did my best to copy by hand the intricate boundaries of Cedar Hills from the map published by its homeowners association in a small search window on the Regional Multiple Listing Service (RMLS) website. I decided to include two small islands surrounded by the neighborhood (Forest Hills Village and Lynnridge) and two areas on its fringes (Belvidere and 2015-13 Partition Plat). I delivered or mailed Homing in on Cedar Hills to about 300 homeowners and linked it to a Facebook ad for digital access.

While working on the newsletter, I consulted Q2 neighborhood rankings for context. I wondered if 97225 had kept its spot among the top 10. But it proved impossible to track that trend because at the time Portland Business Journal published the so-called “Heat Index” – overall rankings based on equal weighting of volume of sales, speed of sales, and average sale price – only in the 1^st and 3^rd quarters of the year.

I reached out to Brandon Sawyer, the journalist on the hottest neighborhoods beat, to ask if he could share the info and to suggest that the Heat Index be published every quarter. He not only obliged on both counts, but wrote me into his August 21 article.

It turns out 97229 and 97225 slipped in the overall rankings, taking 6^th and 29^th place in Q2. Still, not bad. And 97225 took 7^th for average sale price – 2 places ahead of 97229.

If I can answer any questions about your neighborhood market or you’d like to “subscribe” to Homing in on Cedar Hills, dear readers, drop me a line (catherinequoyeser@kw.com or 503-705-5725). The next issue comes out in October and I’m thinking of launching a counterpart for Cedar Mill.